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Woman commits suicide in Silver City hospital ER

By Christine Steele / csteele@scsun-news.com

Posted:
01/25/2013 06:11:12 PM MST

SILVER CITY — A suicidal woman who was taken to Gila Regional Medical Center for help Thursday night pulled out a gun she had managed to conceal from sheriff's deputies and hospital staff and killed herself in the hospital emergency room in front of hospital security and staff.

The incident began just before 9:30 p.m. when the woman's mother called 911 and said her 32-year-old daughter was suicidal and had a gun. Grant County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to the woman's home in Arenas Valley and made contact with the woman, Sheriff Raul Villanueva said.

"The deputies started looking around and found an empty gun case and empty magazine," he said. "They continued looking but didn't find a gun. They patted her down and searched her and nothing was uncovered."

The woman agreed to go voluntarily with EMS workers to the hospital, Villanueva said, and a deputy rode with her in the ambulance. When they arrived at Gila Regional Medical Center, hospital staff took her in and the deputies were released, he said.

Villanueva said the male deputies followed department procedure when searching the woman.

"We are not allowed to do any internal searches and male deputies can't do a full-body search on a female," he said. "Procedure was followed as far as the pat down and looking for bulges that aren't normal on a person in looking for a weapon.

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According to an initial report from the Silver City Police Department, a hospital nurse told the officer that she took all of the woman's clothes from her except her bra and underwear and gave her a hospital gown. The nurse told police she looked inside the back side of the woman's bra and underwear, but when she went to check the front of her underwear, the woman pulled the gown down like she was trying to hide herself. The nurse said she did pat the front of the woman's underwear but found nothing. The nurse also said the woman told her she was not suicidal and had too much to live for.

A hospital employee who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that a nurse searched the woman and that she seemed OK and she was put in a room with security on stand-by to watch her. It was about an hour later, the source said, that the woman pulled out a gun. Security told her twice to put the gun away, the source said, but the woman cocked the gun, pointed it to her head and pulled the trigger.

"We all ran in but she was not responsive and had no pulse," the source said. "We are still in shock."

The woman's mother said her daughter had been prescribed Xanax and had been taking it before bedtime but the medication made her suicidal.

"She was happy, she loved life, but she would take Xanax at night to go to bed and it would make her suicidal," she said. "If they would have watched her, she would be alive today."

"Gila Regional let my sister down," the woman's sister said.

"The hospital needs to change a lot of things there," the mother added. "They are really failing a lot of people."

Another source who works in the emergency room but wished to remain anonymous said there is a complete lack of security at the hospital and that employees don't always feel safe.

"Security at the hospital is a joke," the employee said. "It is only a matter of time before someone gets hurt."

The source said the shooting isn't the first time someone has injured themselves in the emergency room. Last summer a patient stabbed themselves while in the ER.

"Nobody is getting the bigger point. A loaded gun in the ER was used. How does someone brought in by police get a gun in?"

Gila Regional Medical Center spokeswoman Holley Hudgins said the hospital treats the safety of its staff and the public with the utmost importance.

"Grief counselors were called in immediately and they are having ongoing dialogue with patients and caregivers who were present at the time of the incident, as well as any other caregiver who needs to talk about what happened," she said.

Hudgins said hospital policies and procedures were followed and that the woman was alone in an exam room with a security guard outside who had visual contact with her.

"Anytime an incident takes place like this, we have a full review of the situation. We treat everything very seriously," Hudgins said.

The woman leaves her husband and three young children and a grieving family behind.